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Book Cover
E-book

Title Identities, politics, and rights / edited by Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns
Edition 1st pbk. ed
Published Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1997

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Description 1 online resource (vi, 439 pages)
Series Amherst series in law, jurisprudence, and social thought
Amherst series in law, jurisprudence, and social thought.
Contents [Pt. 1.] Rights and the Constitution of the self. Bodily integrity and the right to abortion / Drucilla Cornell -- Rights and identity in late modernity: revisiting the "Jewish question" / Wendy Brown -- Reincarnation as the ring on Liz Taylor's finger: Andy Warhol and the right of publicity / Jane Gaines -- Taking liberties in Foucault's triangle: sovereignty, discipline, governmentality, and the subject of rights / Kirstie M. McClure -- The discourse of rights in colonial South Africa: subjectivity, sovereignty, modernity / John Comaroff -- pt. 2. Rights in political struggles. Nothing left but rights: law in the struggle against apartheid / Richard L. Abel -- Wife battering and the ambiguities of rights / Sally Engle Merry -- The First Amendment and the meaning of America / Steven Shiffrin -- Rights and cultural difference / Martha Minow -- Is nationalism compatible with human rights? Reflections on East-Central Europe / Elizabeth Kiss -- The next American Revolution / Bruce Ackerman
Summary The subject of rights occupies a central place in liberal political thought. This tradition posits that rights are entitlements of individuals by virtue of their personhood and that rights stand apart from politics, that rights in fact hold at bay intrusions of state policy. The essays in Identities, Politics, and Rights question these assumptions and examine how rights constitute us as subjects and are, at the same time, implicated in political struggles. In contrast to the liberal notion of rights' universality, these essays emphasize the context-specific nature of rights as well as their constitutive effects
Recognizing that political disputes throughout the world have increasingly been cast as arguments about rights, the essays in this volume examine the varied roles that rights play in political movements and contests. They argue that rights talk is used by many different groups primarily because of its fluidity. Certainly rights can empower individuals and protect them from their societies, but they also constrain them in other areas. Frequently, empowerment for one group means disabling rights for another group. Moreover, focusing on rights can both liberate and limit the imagination of the possible. By alerting us to this paradox of rights - empowerment and limitation - Identities, Politics, and Rights illuminates the ongoing challenges to rights and reminds us that rights can both energize political engagement and provide a resource for defenders of the status quo
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Civil rights.
Human rights.
Human Rights
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Civil Rights.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Human Rights.
LAW -- General.
Civil rights
Human rights
Form Electronic book
Author Sarat, Austin.
Kearns, Thomas R.
LC no. 95000543
ISBN 9780472023776
0472023772
0472084739
9780472084739
9780472106325
0472106325